We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Witucki a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amanda, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
I’ve always been a good employee-I give 110%, I do my best to learn everything needed to be the best at my job. I always hold integrity at the top of my values. I spent the 17 years prior to my career as an artist in various managerial roles in retail and food service.
When Covid-19 hit in 2020 and I was furloughed from my full-time job, I finally had time to create a large body of art and begin selling regularly. As excited as I was to finally have the time to create art, I felt very out of place because I knew nothing of the art world. So I brought my work ethic to this and began researching the art world. I hired several coaches for art and business advising, sat in on countless webinars learning best practices for how to wire and prepare you canvases for hanging, as well as how to do business taxes.
Early on, after reaching out to my first gallery about showing my art, she told me to come in person and bring some art. When I got there, she thanked me for how professional I was and how responsive I was in my email. I was confused—all I did was send a brief email introducing myself and my art and included a few high quality photos. It seemed obvious that this would be the way to do things, and I was desperate to get my art out into the world, so naturally I was quick to respond to her email. When I asked her what was so great about what I did, she said that all too often, artists take forever to respond, they don’t include photos—if they do, they’re either not high enough quality, or the work is from too long ago and is no longer relevant. I was shocked. If this is how people make their living, wouldn’t it be obvious to respond in a timely manner? I quickly realized that most artists (ie my competition) were not operating with the same sense of urgency and professionalism that I was bringing to the table.
That was several years ago, and I’ve since heard so many comments like this from gallery owners, art advisors, etc. I behaved like a student with all things art and art career—always trying to learn how to be better. I’ve also applied this to social media, marketing, product and collection launches, and big picture planning. Being responsive, and trying to learn the ins and outs of this new world, and treating everything like a hungry student, has been the most useful skill that I brought from my previous work experience.
Amanda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As a paper artist, I create large textural installations, works on canvas, and small paper decorations like garlands, lamps, and mobiles. I typically work with traditional origami and other folded paper techniques, but my main focus is creating unique color palettes. My work is very crisp and structured, but there’s a playful element to it as well.
I’ve always been drawn to paper as a medium—it’s the perfect combination of clean and simple, but has endless potential with the right skill.
I previously had a creative business designing weddings and events, and I went through a transitional period where I was getting out of weddings and was uncertain how to find the right audience for my craft. A friend suggested I take my larger installations and make everything much smaller and find a way to put it on canvas to sell it as art. I’m forever grateful to that friend. The mindset around budget is completely different when comparing someone hiring art for an event versus art for their home. This industry switch was the right move for me, and I’ve been supporting myself full time with my art practice for over a year and a half!
Right now I’m focusing on creating small collections, doing commission work, and setting up a Patreon to help with financial sustainability while I work on larger projects. I have some big projects coming up next year, and I’m excited to work more in larger installation pieces and eventually temporary public art. I really love transforming a space, and I just want to work bigger and bigger.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
The simplest advice for building your social media is to post high-quality photos and post them frequently (I do around 3 times a week). There are lots of resources on the internet that will help you achieve good lighting in your photos, interesting composition, and how to edit your photos. It sounds like a lot, but it will soon become second nature. There’s a lot more that goes into that, but if you take anything anything away from this, consistency and quality are key.
Branding is important, too. Take the time to discover your style with how you want to present your work. I only have one area in my apartment that gets good lighting, so the dark wood floor you see in so many of my photos ended up being a branding choice born out of necessity.
With all this algorithm nonsense, you should also post reels. I never choose the “trending audio” or do any of the lip synching things because they feel cheesy and forced for me to do. Nothing wrong with it; it’s just not for me. Utilize reels to show whatever behind the scenes content you want to share with your audience. Think outside of the box with how you use this tool. There’s an artist I follow who announces their upcoming markets by filming something simple (like walking around in their living room holding a giant pumpkin) and overlayed text on the video to list the dates of upcoming fall markets. Blew my mind. It was such an interesting way to convey technical information.
Lastly, interact with your audience and take time to interact with other creatives on social media. The creative community on Instagram is such a supportive and kind place, not to mention a great resource for questions you might have in your new business.
It takes time to build a following, but it is endlessly valuable. I would not be able to support myself solely with my art if I wasn’t utilizing Instagram.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
How I ended up creating origami art was actually a pivot. Back in 2018, I was still trying to figure out what type of creative business I wanted to have. I was filming crafting tutorials because I thought I was going to be a YouTube personality. I was looking at different paper craft ideas on Pinterest and I decided an origami pendant that people display in their homes would be a fun tutorial. As I was folding the two shapes that are glued together to create the pendant, I pressed in the center of one of the shapes to see what it looked like inverted. It was definitely an aha! moment. I could see that if you glued a bunch of these together lining up the matching folds, it might create a fun backdrop. That was the shape that changed everything for me. I was on my second video tutorial and I realized the origami backdrop concept was way cooler than yet another craft tutorial, and I decided to pursue that avenue. I developed an entire art practice from that one shape, so needless to say I never made another tutorial video.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.papercommittee.com
- Instagram: @thepapercommittee
Image Credits
Tara Moon